


The Spirit of the Staircase

by Mithrigil



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Interrogation, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Recovery, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can you regret something you never technically did?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirit of the Staircase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellscabanaboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellscabanaboy/gifts).



> Spoilers through endgame!
> 
> Thanks to F., for the SHSL beta.

Kamukura Izuru wakes up.

Hinata Hajime takes a few extra seconds.

*

“We made sure he couldn’t see how we restrained him,” Togami says, his voice echoing as they walk down the facility’s polished hall. “I told Naegi to keep him blindfolded too, but we’ll see if he had the sense to listen.”

Kirigiri nods and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I would say that Naegi wouldn’t be that crazy, but then again, we’re here.”

Togami scoffs through his teeth. “At this point, he owes it to us to listen to reason.”

“I agree. But he might decide it’s reasonable to trust the survivors, after what they’ve been through.”

“Regardless, I hope you’re armed.”

“I am.” And she only had to shoot once, to tranquilize Kuzuryuu after he demanded to see Pekoyama. The other three were more or less cooperative upon awakening. The Princess even made innuendos about her straightjacket.

“Knowing Naegi,” Togami goes on, “we need someone to be the bad cop.”

“That would be you,” Kirigiri says. “I’ve always been a _private_ investigator.”

As they approach the door to the designated room, Togami draws his dartgun as well, and keys the door open with his other hand. Kirigiri nods, and lets him open the door and cover her.

Inside, Naegi hasn’t let his sense of mercy and optimism get the better of him just yet. Naegi sits in a folding chair, tablet recording on his lap, stylus still in his hand. He glances over his shoulder at Kirigiri, and smiles, more nervous but hopeful as ever.

“To whom am I speaking?” Kirigiri asks, more of the man in the restraints than Naegi.

The man in the restraints says, completely nonplussed and without a moment’s hesitation, “Kamukura Izuru.”

**

No matter how many times she plays the recording, nothing changes.

_I see,_ she says. _Do you know where you are?_

_The interior of a ship docked at Jabberwock Island._

_Do you know why you’re here?_

_What’s the point of questioning me if you’re the ones who brought me here in the first place?_

_You assume we coordinated this._

_You didn’t kill me in the simulation. Obviously you had to coordinate to prevent that from happening._

_So you know about the simulation._

Kamukura sighs, and it rasps through the laptop’s tiny speaker. _I know the difference between people who intend to cut me open and people who think they can change anything without lifting a finger. You brought me here to save me, for what little that’s worth. Obviously it didn’t work. And you’re too chicken to cut your losses._

Back then, Kirigiri didn’t say anything about hope instead of fear. It hadn’t occurred to her. But Super High School Level Hope or not, Kamukura wouldn’t be moved by it anyway.

Kamukura, evidently, won’t be moved by anything.

_I see,_ Kirigiri says on the recording. _You still haven’t answered my question. Do you know why you’re here?_

As easy as breathing, Kamukura says, _I did answer your question. Because you brought me. I’m here because you brought me here. Unless you want the perverse answer, which is just as pointless, because it’s the same reason you’re here._

_And that reason would be?_

_Because your father made me._

There’s more to the interrogation than that, there always is, but a high-pitch buzzer slaps through the room and Kirigiri hits the laptop’s mute. It’s Togami’s turn to keep watch: he wouldn’t hit the alarm if something wasn’t wrong. So Kirigiri bolts out of the room in her pajamas, ready to take on whatever’s at the scene.

The klaxons and flares are coming from the lower deck, where the cells with the survivors are, of course. Kirigiri hustles down the stairs, dartgun in hand. She takes note of which cell door is open, which four aren’t, and that there’s no blood, no bodies on the floor.

And someone is shouting, hoarse and panicked, in Kamukura’s room. “Just tell me where I am -- please, take me out of this thing and tell me -- I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear it, I just wanted --”

Kirigiri immediately understands what’s happening here, and hides the dartgun behind her back. “Hinata Hajime.”

Kamukura -- Hinata -- whichever of them it is blinks, chokes in air, and sags into the bed he’s strapped to. “You know me. Please say you know me.”

“Not exactly, but I’m glad you responded to that name.” Kirigiri gives Togami the kind of laden glance he definitely understands: he can extort the last drops of blood from a dying man, but when it comes to obtaining information she’s the true expert, and they both know it. “Do you know where you are?”

“Am I still at Hope’s Peak? Did the operation fail?” Hinata braces his shoulders against the mattress, tries to push himself out, bound arms and all. “I signed a form. They said they would euthanize me if it didn’t take. If you’re not with the project I’m not supposed to talk with you.”

So he’s not just Hinata now: he’s Hinata as if the brain surgery never happened. He’s not the clean slate they sent into the Jabberwock simulation. Kirigiri doesn’t let herself be distracted by the opportunity, but keeps it on file, waits for the right evidence to refute. “Are you referring to the Super High School Level Hope Creation Project?”

“I --” He gulps. “I shouldn’t say anything.”

_Ease him into it,_ she decides, _make him comfortable, establish a rhythm._ “How old are you, Hinata?”

“Seventeen.”

That confirms her hypothesis: Hinata would have been nearly sixteen when he entered the Reserve Department as a freshman. As far as the Future Foundation’s records state, the Hope Creation project came to a head a year and a half later, around the same time as the mass-murder of the Student Council Kirigiri’s freshman year -- which she, of course, does not fully remember, but the evidence is conclusive and damning.

She continues with the simple, straightforward questions, even if she knows the answers, and lets Togami take to the wall and cover her, the same as he did when this prisoner was Kamukura. “Are you a student?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Hope’s Peak Academy.”

“What class?”

“I was in the Reserve Department, 77-1-G.”

_Was,_ he says, at seventeen. That’s worth its weight in bullets. “Do you have any family?”

He relaxes into the restraints, just a little. His overlong hair spreads out on the pillow. It’s working. “My parents are both still alive. I’m an only child.”

Kirigiri nods. “Are they proud of you?”

He sighs. It sounds like Kamukura’s. “They’re always proud of me.”

Now. “Does the name Kamukura Izuru mean anything to you?”

He answers like it’s a quiz show. “He’s the founder of Hope’s Peak.”

So his name isn’t a trigger. That makes sense: it isn’t that way for Syo and Fukawa either. Talking about Syo just makes Fukawa uncomfortable. She tries another. “What about Nanami Chiaki?”

*

Kamukura Izuru wakes up.

Hinata Hajime struggles to keep him down.

**

“She...sounds familiar,” Hinata says, shivering so hard the bedframe creaks and the restraints pull taut. His breathing slows, and his eyes drift toward the ceiling. At the door, Togami raises his dartgun, and Kirigiri doesn’t stop him.

“Tell me about her,” Kirigiri says.

Hinata grits his teeth. “I remember...she had to pick her words very carefully, and write whole sentences in her head.”

_Had,_ he says. More evidence, more closure. “Had?” Kirigiri repeats. “Where is she now?”

*

Over in the corner, it turns out. Over Kirigiri’s shoulder. She’s just standing there, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, and no one else can see or else they’d freak out. It’s an optimal sniping position. If this were a first-person shooter she’d be able to discharge her objective immediately.

Hinata’s not sure which of them laughs at that, him or Kamukura.

“Rest,” Nanami says. “Recharge. You’ve unlocked enough for today, I think.”

**

“I’m sorry,” Hinata says -- Kamukura would never say it -- and his eyes drift shut. A moment later, he’s as asleep as he was in the simulation coffin, breathing soft and uneven.

Togami groans. “I assume you know where to proceed from here.”

“I do,” Kirigiri says. “Keep watch, and stay in here. I’ll get Naegi.”

*

“I knew it,” Naegi says. “I knew Hinata was too strong for that.”

Kirigiri nods, pours herself more tea. “He is, but Kamukura is strong as well. Also, the others experienced Rehabilitation as themselves. Kamukura was never rehabilitated, only Hinata.”

“I know. But I’m not giving up on him.”

“I never expected you to. But it’s clear from this outburst that we’ll have to go about it differently. That _he’ll_ have to go about it differently. What’s the status of the others?”

Naegi smiles. “We still have Owari on a drip, but she seems to know where she is and why she’s here. Souda’s asking questions and has stopped panicking about his scars, at least for now. Her Highness asked about the war, but she also asked about the hamsters, so that’s a good sign. And Kuzuryuu is still out cold.”

“I may have given him too large a dose of tranquilizer.”

“Ha, um. It’s possible. Likely, even.”

“So you really believe that we can override the shutdown?”

“Of course. I mean, you got some of your memories back even after what happened.”

“Some,” she says. “Not all. And I wanted to remember. I thought the whole point of this exercise was that they needed to form new memories entirely.”

“I’ve...been thinking about that, actually.” Naegi fiddles with his collar, looks down at his hand. “When we were in the game, Hinata said some things about what they can and can’t erase. They did what they did -- the real people, not the avatars. They were Super High School Level Despair. They can’t change that. But the hope that they could grow and learn from it is why they’re here, why they put through the forced shutdown in the first place. Hinata didn’t want to live a lie. He wanted to be himself, to live as Hinata Hajime. So in their hearts, they want to remember.”

“But Hinata Hajime is a lie,” Kirigiri says. “Hinata died the day Kamukura was created.”

Naegi shakes his head. “No. I think Hinata was always part of Kamukura. I don’t think Kamukura could exist if Hinata wasn’t still in there. And if you’re right, and he really does remember Nanami --”

**

Kamukura Izuru has nothing to say. That’s fine: the girl in the corner doesn’t have much to say to him, either. She just stands there and watches him, her eyes vacant like computer screens on sleep mode. He quickly grows bored of even looking back.

This entire enterprise has been boring, fruitless, and a reinforcement of the futility of existence.

Even thoughts of escape bore him. There’s no world to go back to, not really: the Monoworld of Enoshima’s devising isn’t nearly as exciting as it seemed on paper. Enoshima herself is much less exciting when she’s dead. There aren’t any Super High School Level Talents remaining that he can replicate and claim, and even that prospect isn’t worth its weight in neurons. Imprisonment is boring, escape is equally boring, and not even the potential of life after death holds any enticement whatsoever.

“You’re pathetic,” the girl in the corner says.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Kamukura says to the ceiling.

She takes a moment to think about it, and decides, “I don’t care. Not really.”

“Then why bother saying it?”

“I care that you’re pathetic. I don’t care that you didn’t ask me.” She frankly sounds a little confused, and that’s more intriguing than the people in black suits and their pointless questions. Kamukura feels his ears perking up in spite of himself. The girl goes on, as if she planned all of this, “I might not even be talking to you.”

“Then why are you looking in my direction?”

“You’re not the only one there,” she says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Kamukura considers that. He’s heard stranger things. Whatever. “Clearly, whoever you’re talking to has no interest in responding.”

“He would if he could hear me.”

“He’s not listening. I’m tired of this.”

After another moment, the girl says, “I still don’t care. I’d like to talk to him. I think.”

“Him who?”

Silence ticks by. Kamukura thinks, distantly, that she might be as bored of this as he is.

And then she says, “I don’t know. I just know he’s not you.”

*

Kirigiri has never particularly liked Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko, on a matter of principle. This entire debacle changes nothing.

But he has a point.

“It’s Hinata that got us out of there in the first place,” he says, looking more like a slightly smaller, much pricklier version of Naegi than he’d ever accept. Handcuffs are pointless on a Super High School Level Yakuza, so Naegi let him see Pekoyama’s pod and Togami threatened to tranquilize him again, both which proved much more effective. “He faced himself in there. I might not remember all the crap that went on in there but I remember _that_.” 

Kirigiri looks him in the eye -- the only eye -- and asks, “What else do you remember?”

Kuzuryuu somehow makes curling in on himself look more offensive than defensive. Kirigiri is somewhat reminded of hedgehogs. It must be his hair. “From in there, or from out here?”

“From in there.”

He purses his teeth, somewhere between a spit and a snarl. “I know that the me in there would pretend he was okay with what I did out here. And then he wouldn’t. That enough for you?”

“It’s a start,” Kirigiri says.

“He needs to hear from us.”

He’s got that wrong. “If I could guarantee that you’d be talking to him, I would let you.”

Kirigiri has never liked Kuzuryuu, but he isn’t stupid, and it doesn’t take a Super High School Level Yakuza to deduce her meaning.

“Shit,” he says.

“More or less.”

**

“We could call Fukawa,” Naegi says, hopefully.

“No,” Togami says.

“I don’t know,” Naegi goes on. “She may have something really helpful to say.”

“That _thing_ is the antithesis of helpful.”

“Insightful, then.”

“Hardly. For one thing, their cases are completely different. For another, there’s no guarantee you’d get her if you brought them both here. And for another, _no._ ”

“I’ll tell her you’re not here.”

“She won’t believe you. And she can trace our location if you do.”

“That’s more credit than you’ve ever given her.”

“She’s a psychopath and a stalker. It’s not credit, it’s professional courtesy.”

Naegi thinks about that for a moment, long enough for the idea to shift from amusement into evidence. “Professional courtesy,” he repeats.

“I’m not going to like this plan either, am I.”

“Probably not,” Naegi laughs. “But you of all people aren’t going to hold me back.”

*

Kamukura Izuru wakes up.

The girl in the corner is still there. She’s not in the corner anymore: she’s on the edge of his bed, but there’s no indentation in the mattress that isn’t his. She looks him in the eyes, like she’s planning what to say.

She’s gone in a blink when the Future Foundation walks in, all three of them in their black suits, like a strike team. For once, it’s Kirigiri in the middle, not Naegi -- and then Kamukura sees why.

It’s almost amusing. Naegi is escorting Princess Sonia Nevermind by the arm of her straightjacket, in a near-parody of a boy escorting his first girl to a formal dance floor. Once Kamukura’s seen it, the miniscule urge to register laughter dissipates completely, but for a moment the absurdity alleviates the boredom.

“Hello!” Nevermind says, altogether too cheerful and elegant for someone in a straightjacket, not that it’s atypical of her. Her hair is wound off her face -- probably Kirigiri’s doing -- but her face isn’t made-up at all. Kirigiri pulls over a chair and Naegi helps Nevermind sit in it, close enough to Kamukura’s bedisde that if their arms were free, they could conceivably touch. “Good morning, Kamukura. I assume it’s you, after all?”

Kamukura just lets his eyes do the talking. The rest of him has nothing to say.

“I know it must look like I’ve sold out, but really, my cooperation with the Future Foundation is more courteous than anything else. I do very much want to talk to you! I certainly didn’t get the chance to when they segregated us on the way over, and as far as I know I only spoke to Hinata on Jabberwock Island. You’re a fascinating personage, Kamukura.”

It’s far from the first time Kamukura’s heard that. The words carry no meaning whatsoever.

But Nevermind goes on, “Truly, it’s ingenious! A part of me wishes I had access to you when I was taking over Europe. Well, a part of me _would_ wish that.” She flashes a smile that reminds Kamukura uncannily of windchimes and pinwheels and mass graves. “It would have gone very smoothly. I’m not sure that’s what Enoshima wanted.”

It wouldn’t be. Kamukura remembers those first hours of his life, _his_ true life, chasing the Student Council through the halls of the complex until he’d learned all he could and then disposing of them all. If Enoshima wanted things to be easy, she’d have just killed them herself. She wants things to be exciting. Kamukura can relate -- or could, if even the prospect of excitement weren’t so pointless.

“But you know better than any of us what Enoshima wanted,” she says. “After all, you embodied it.”

It isn’t false. But something in the statement still stings, the way so little else does.

“I mean, I guess you could say I came close to that. After all, a Super High School Level Princess by her very definition has everything and wants for nothing. Plenty of people have written about the despair at the top of the world! I definitely know you have in Japan. Royal dramas! Gorgeous concubines with everything but love!” She laughs, covers her mouth with her fingertips. “But you’re even more than that. You have every talent in the world, and they’re still not your own. If she were here, she’d say that’s such perfect despair.”

“What’s the point of saying this,” Kamukura sighs -- but there’s more of a growl in it than he intended.

Nevermind shrugs. “There isn’t one. But that, itself, is the point. You could imitate her better than I can, I think, but that’s all. You’re her despair. She couldn’t elicit it in herself, so she used you.”

Something in Kamukura’s head explodes. It must be anger. He’s only felt it once before.

These restraints are much less strong than the Future Foundation thinks they are.

**

Hinata Hajime wakes up.

Kamukura Izuru can’t do anything about it.

Nanami blinks at him, them, once, and already knows what she’s going to say. “Now.”

*

He could kill everyone in this room in a matter of seconds. He’ll pry the restraints clean out of the bed, garrote the Princess before she says another word. He’ll throw her lifeless body into the path of Togami’s tranquilizer, then bash Togami’s head against the doorjamb, and it will only take once. After that, it’s just a matter of hostaging Naegi to disable Kirigiri, then snapping his tiny neck. He’ll plug Kirigiri’s eyes with darts from Togami’s gun while she’s still in shock, send those chemicals straight into her precious, inferior brain.

He could.

_He could._

He will.

_He wants to._

“I know,” Hinata says. “I’d want it too if I were you. But I’m not, so shut up.”

**

The Princess blinks. “Excuse me?”

“It’s fine,” Hinata says. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you, your Highness.”

The wash of relief over the room is almost palpable: Naegi and the Princess smile as bright as lights, and Togami relaxes against the doorjamb. Kirigiri almost can’t help smiling herself, but whatever this is, it isn’t done.

“Hinata!” The Princess lurches forward like she could hug him, never mind the straightjacket. Naegi holds her shoulders to keep her from falling out of the chair.

“Yeah, um, it’s me.”

“I’m so glad! And you know who I am and everything! It was ever so much fun to play the provocateur. I’ll have these Future Foundation people fetch the others immediately --”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now,” Hinata says.

“Looks like we got the sensible one this time,” Togami says.

Kirigiri nods. “He’s right. How long do you think you can keep this up?”

“I don’t know. But Nanami’s in here helping me, don’t worry. And at least you know that I _can_ get out. That’s enough for now, right?”

Naegi beams. “Yeah. It’s more than enough.”

Hinata nods, more like he’s turning into the pillow than anything else, and the smile he gives is weary and uncomfortable, but there. “Good. I’ll take it. But, um...can I ask a favor?”

“Of course,” Naegi says.

“...Would someone please cut my hair?”

*

Kamukura rolls his eyes, lies there, and waits. So does the girl in the corner. At least that’s something interesting. “Nanami, is it?”

She takes a moment, and nods. “Yes.”

At least it looks like he won’t be bored alone. “As if your name even matters.”

She’s had a lot of time to plan to say this, with no regrets. “It mattered enough to you that you asked me.”

That keeps Kamukura quiet for a while.

***


End file.
